Looking for the Next Google — SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 29 — In brand-new offices with a still-empty game room and enough space to triple their staff of nearly 30, a trio of entrepreneurs is leading an Internet start-up with an improbable mission: to out- Google Google.

What Is The Definition Of A Blog? — Yesterday Google posted the yearly stats for the Official Google Blog. Not bad - 294 posts, 7.6 million unique visitors and 15 million page views. Technorati ranks the Google Blog as the 16th largest among all blogs, and it is by far the most popular official company blog.

The Official Google Blog is NOT a Blog — "The definition of "googol" is a number, and Google lives by numbers. So how else should we look back over the year but with numerical bits?" — That's the opening line of A year in Google blogging, then it lists the number of posts, products unveiled, acquisitions ..etc.

Nokia's Gizmo Project: Phone-to-Phone VoIP — Written by Rudy De Waele from m-trends.org and edited by Richard MacManus. — We are entering an era of broadband being available anywhere, on any device - and this will happen all 'over IP' (Internet Protocol).

Windows screwup forces Ubuntu shift — A match made in hell — YOU NEVER QUITE wrap your head around how anti-consumer Microsoft's policies are until they bite you in the bum. Add in the customer antagonistic policies of its patsies, HP in this case, and vendors like Promise, and you have quite a recipe for pain.

Gmail bug exposes your mail account to spammers — Like your Gmail account? Consider it a sacred place which must be protected from spammers at all cost? Yeah, us too. Well, we hate to break the bad news at the dawn of the new year but there's a weakness in Gmail which exposes …

Loaded With Personalities, Now Satellite Radio May Try a Merger — Last year's debut of Howard Stern's radio show on Sirius Satellite Radio put the technology on the map, raising the public's awareness of satellite radio and helping to boost significantly subscriber totals for Sirius and its larger rival, XM Satellite Radio.

VIDEO GAMES — WII SPORTS (for Wii) — There is no possible way to say this enough times: great graphics don't make great games. Perfect Dark Zero looked like a Titian, but it was a snooze. Wii Sports—a mini-sports anthology that includes golf, boxing, tennis, baseball and bowling—looks like Colecovision.

iPod owners report whining sound emanating from 2G nanos — In a thread over at the Apple Discussions forums, dozens of iPod owners are reporting high-pitching whining and / or buzzing sounds emanating from their 2nd Generation iPod nanos. Many of the owners cite that their units …

GOOGLE ENDS YEAR ON SOUR NOTE — Google has had a rash of missteps in the last few day, leaving a negative feeling going into the new year. — First off: Google accidently deleted the inboxes of some 60 Gmail users, leaving them with none of their stored email (and, surprisingly …

Unhappy Christmas surprise — sschwebke@standard.net — LAYTON — Christmas became XXX-mas for a 14-year-old Layton boy who discovered hard-core pornography on a video game he received as a gift. — Kolton Mahoney was shocked when he put the Madden NFL 07 game in his new Xbox 360 console Christmas …

Toshiba SED production hits another snag — Well, it looks like there's more than just "technical issues" holding up production of Toshiba's long-awaited SED TVs and keeping them away from this year's CES, with Japan Today reporting that a US lawsuit may now delay the construction of a plant to produce the high-end TV sets.

Predictions for 2007 — Alas, as 2006 ends and 2007 begins this is my first time in making predictions for the year ahead which aren't at The Blog Herald in 5 years. Whether next years predictions will be here or at another blog of higher note is yet to be decided.

Our Interview with Jeremy Allison — Shane and I contacted Jeremy Allison, who has answered many of the questions which we thought our readers would like to see answered. I would like to thank Jeremy for taking the time to provide his input. — BN: We would like to hear about your experience …